


cold hearts, thawing

by merely



Category: Doom (2005)
Genre: F/M, On the Run, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merely/pseuds/merely
Summary: The first words out of Sam's mouth when she woke up were, "We have to get you out of here."
Relationships: John Grimm/Samantha Grimm
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	cold hearts, thawing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabacoychanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabacoychanel/gifts).



The first words out of Sam's mouth when she woke up were, "We have to get you out of here." 

She'd been in the base infirmary for over a day, unconscious while machines beeped and an IV dripped who knew what into her arm and John tried very hard not to think about Duke or Destroyer or the dead kids in the Ark. The brass had hauled him away for a couple hours to debrief him, but he'd been in enough military clusterfucks to know how to stonewall. It was all going to be a huge mess, he could tell, and the higher-ups wanted it contained more than they wanted real answers anyway. They'd let him go back to sitting at his sister's bedside quickly enough. 

Sam, she informed him in an angry whisper, did not share his faith in the incuriosity of his superiors, wasn't interested in being told things were fine, and emphatically didn't appreciate John telling her that she needed to calm down. _That_ escalated into all the machines she was hooked up to going off like sirens and the on-call doctor running in to make sure she wasn't dead. John knew better than anyone that his twin could lie when she had to, but he still almost bit his tongue off when she started fucking _crying_. Tears just welling up and dripping down her cheeks while she told the doctor how she was so afraid and couldn't she just go home, her brother would take her and make sure she was all right, she just wanted to be in her own apartment and her own bed. 

"I can't believe that worked," John said aloud as they walked out to Sam's car in the contractor lot. It was broad daylight, which felt wrong in some intrinsic way that he couldn't pin down, and Sam was moving at approximately the speed of a Galapagos tortoise. She'd looked like he'd just spat in her face when he offered to carry her. He squinted up into the sky, waiting. 

"Sometimes crying's the fastest way to get what you want," Sam said from behind him, cool and practical. She was walking carefully, but she wasn't out of breath. Some atrophied muscle inside him twinged with pride: his stubborn girl. She'd never admit she'd bitten off more than she could chew. "Sometimes it's better to explain. Sometimes you can yell. It depends on who you're talking to." 

"Yeah?" John knew he would regret asking, but he couldn't stop the words coming out of his mouth. "So what's the best way to get what you want from me?" 

He saw the car keys come flying at him out of the corner of his eye and put up his hand to catch them only just in time. "If I knew that," Sam said, "maybe you wouldn't have left in the first place. Just follow the signs for the exit." 

She curled up in the passenger seat with her head against the window and shut her eyes, like she really planned to just go to sleep. "I don't know your address," John said. 

"Don't be an idiot, we're not going to my apartment," she said without opening her eyes. "We have to disappear, not go exactly where we told them to find us." 

"So what, you want me to just drive into the desert? We don't have any supplies, Sam. We wouldn't make it a week." 

She finally lifted her head. "No," she said, like she was talking to a child or an incompetent lab assistant. "We're going to Vegas." 

~*~

John still dreamed about the cave-in, sometimes. 

It never went away, but it had gotten easier, after he'd left (Mars, home, Sam). After he'd done enough terrible things that they outweighed the terrible things that had happened to him. The dreams were still the same, but they felt duller, almost muffled, like they were coming from far away: the thunder of the rocks crashing down, his own voice screaming for their parents, Sam yelling as she dragged him away. She'd been bigger than he was, back when they were twelve; she'd hit her growth spurt first and gotten serious about running track while he was still hunched over microscopes and the doorstopper fantasy novels he asked for every birthday. The doctors who checked them over had muttered about counseling and stitched up the cuts Sam had gotten from flying shards of rock, but the only thing they could find wrong with John was the bruise on his arm where she'd grabbed him. 

The first few nights he woke up sobbing Sam was there, already awake, arms wrapped around him from behind like she was still trying to keep him from running back inside the cave. John learned to be quiet, after that. Then there was the endless string of foster parents who thought it was inappropriate for him and Sam to share a room, let alone a bed, and finally he was eighteen and _out_. It was so close-quarters in the barracks that it was almost like privacy: everyone knew he had nightmares, but nobody gave a shit why. All they cared about was if he would shut the fuck up so they could go back to sleep. He was a goddamn professional at shutting the fuck up. 

He didn't know why it was suddenly different now, 3 a.m. in a Las Vegas motel room. He was awake, he knew it wasn't real, but he couldn't stop seeing it. He couldn't make it stop. 

"John," Sam said. The bed shifted under them, Sam rolling over to look at him. She had slept straight through being carried in from the car. She was probably confused. He should open his eyes, and have a conversation, and they'd figure out what they were doing and where they would go. He had to open his eyes. He just had to look, and Sam's face wouldn't be covered in blood, and it would be fine. He would be fine. He just had to stop. 

"I don't know how to stop," he choked. 

Sam shifted closer and put an arm across his chest, anchoring him down. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel her breasts pressed against his side, the slow in and out of her breath. She wouldn't be dead, if he opened his eyes. "You don't have to," she said. "It's just us." 

~*~

John woke up with a blinding headache and the sun shining directly into his eyes. Sam wasn't anywhere in the room, but he didn't panic; he could hear the shower running. The door to the bathroom was cracked open, and he took the unspoken invitation. "Morning," he said. He splashed some water on his face and tried not to stare at Sam's silhouette against the shower curtain. 

"Drink some water," she said. "You're probably dehydrated. We don't know how your metabolism is going to work now." 

John contemplated a few different responses. "Yes, mother," seemed like poor taste, and he had a feeling that "I'm the drill sergeant around here, not you," wasn't going to work. "Okay," he said at last. The headache started to subside once he'd emptied the plastic cup left on the sink twice, so Sam was probably right. "What's the plan?" he asked. 

The shower shut off, and Sam reached for the towel she'd left out on the sink, which was scratchy and white and exactly the size you'd expect in a cheap motel. It covered the important parts, at least, John noted, and settled on the toilet seat with his eyes fixed on the opposite wall. "Breakfast," Sam said. "Buy some clothes. Bank. Take out all my money — it'll look suspicious but I figure they're probably used to people doing shit like that in Vegas, at least it'll be less memorable than most places. Try and find someone who can make us fake passports that'll hold up at the border. Get out before anyone comes looking for us." 

"You don't have a contact here?" John said, startled. "We're just going in blind?" 

"I'm a scientist, not a spy," Sam snapped. "Who the fuck would I know? I'm doing the best I can, all right?" 

"I didn't mean — you just seemed like you knew what you were doing, that's all." 

"I know I'm not letting you get turned into a lab rat or dissected," Sam said. Her voice had a hard edge, but it was also threatening to wobble. "You think your bosses would hesitate? You think _mine_ would? You're everything they've been trying to make, this whole time they've been digging on Mars. They'd rip you apart trying to make more of you." 

"I know," John said, and didn't say the other thing he knew: that he was stronger and faster than anyone they could send to take him down. He could climb a barbed wire fence, swim a river, vanish into the mountains and fight a bear. He would probably be fine, so long as he kept looking over his shoulder. 

Sam couldn't do any of those things, though. And he couldn't leave her behind again. 

"I know," he repeated. "Okay. It's a solid start for a plan. I can find us a guy, if I ask around." 

~*~

It was significantly easier than he'd expected to find a guy with the amount of cash Sam had stashed in her savings account. Military scientists apparently made a lot more money than the people carrying the guns. Also, in an exciting new biological development, John could now smell when people were lying to him. 

Sam looked up from whatever she was reading when he came into the room and kicked off his shoes. "Day after tomorrow, we'll be good to go," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Sam hadn't liked being left back at the motel while he dealt with the local black market identity merchant, but she wasn't stupid: a tall beautiful blonde was too memorable. 

"That's good," she said. Her hand on the bedspread was close enough to touch when he lay down. He very carefully didn't brush against it. "Do we need to get a different car?" 

"I think just a paint job and new plates should be enough. The guy doing our passports recommended a shop where they won't ask questions. I'll take care of it tomorrow." 

"All right." There was a brief pause, and then John felt her brush his hair away from his forehead. He hadn't put gel in it since returning to Earth; he wasn't used to the feeling of it flopping down into his eyes. He definitely wasn't used to feeling someone else touch it. "You should ask him to make us a marriage license, too." 

At first he was so distracted by Sam stroking his hair that for a moment he didn't really process what she was saying. By the time he caught up, she was going on, "If they're looking for us, they'll be looking for a brother and sister. It'll be better if we aren't obviously who they're looking for. And lots of people get married in Las Vegas." 

"That's committing a lot to a cover," John said carefully. "It might make it harder later on, if you decide you want to split up, settle down somewhere without me. It's not a bad idea, but I'm not sure it's worth it in the long run." 

Sam took in a long hissing breath through her teeth and slid straight off the bed, moving out of his line of sight. "You think I'm doing all this so that I can settle down who knows where without you? You think I'm not _committed_? Why are you always so — I'm not the one who leaves. That's _you_." 

"You know why I had to leave," John snapped, and immediately wished he could take it back. They had never breathed a word about it, never so much as hinted in their stilted cards around their birthday. So long as they didn't acknowledge it, it could stay buried in the dark like their parents and the rest of their past. 

"I never asked you to," Sam said. "You never asked if I _wanted_ you to." 

He sat up and made the mistake of looking directly at her. Before he went back to Mars, he'd halfway convinced himself that he had made it all up: how beautiful she was, the way all the light in the room framed her like a halo. The feeling in the pit of his stomach when he looked at her. They were older now, but everything else had stayed the same. "What would you have said if I did?" 

"I would have told you to wait for me," she said. 

"Sam," he said, agonized. "Don't — "

"No, _you_ don't. I had a plan, you asshole. I knew exactly what we had to do, and I was _waiting_ , and instead you walked away from me, just like you're trying to do now. I'm done letting you decide for me. If you don't want me, if you don't want us, you can say it to my face this time." 

"Sam," he said again, and then nothing. He didn't know what to say. She was a good liar when she had to be, but he knew she wasn't lying this time, which meant she hadn't been lying the first time, either, but that couldn't be true. Their parents dying and Sam not loving him the way he loved her were why he'd become was the person he was. He didn't know how to be wrong about those things and still _be_. 

She was watching him just like he was watching her, waiting for him to decide. He didn't know what his face was doing, but he could see the exact moment hers crumpled. "All right," she said quietly, looking away. "It's all right, John. You don't have to." 

"Sam, _no_ ," he said, because he couldn't stand for her face to look like that, for her face to look like that because he was a coward who couldn't just say the words. He'd lost them when he was eighteen and leaving, leaving home, leaving her. He didn't have words but he had his terrifying new body that could do so many terrifying things: he could kill his best friend and he could smell lies and he could hold his arms out for Sam to walk into and he could let his forehead rest against her sternum and he could love her, if she wanted. He could believe her when she said she loved him back. "I've done a lot of bad things," he said to the comforting softness of Sam's chest. "Even if -- even if I was wrong, when I left. I'm not the person I used to be." 

"Do you think I'm still the same person I was when I was eighteen? I still know you," Sam said. "I'll always know you." 

He'd been running from Sam all his life, since he joined the marines, since their foster families had taught him that the way he felt was sick, since the cave fell in on their parents. It had been miserable and it never worked, and he'd ended up hurting her just as much as he'd hurt himself. Maybe this time he could try running to her instead. "You know I love you, right?" he asked. 

"That's not the same thing as wanting to be with me." 

"I'd rather be on the run from a shady bioengineering firm and the U.S. military with you than anywhere in the world with anybody else," he said, painfully honest. She squawked a little when he pulled her down with him onto the bed, but then she went quiet, half-hopeful and half-scared. He kept his eyes fixed on hers as he touched her nose, her cheek. The corner of her mouth, quivering just a bit while she decided if she was going to smile. She was right: they were always going to know each other. "I guess that means I'd better buy us some rings." 

~*~

"Am I taking I-15 north or south?" he asked. She hadn't been happy when he insisted on taking the car keys -- he could already tell they were going to have a fight at their first rest stop. He was almost looking forward to it: a nice low-stakes argument about the fact that he thought she drove too fast and she thought he drove her sensible sedan like it was a humvee. A married kind of argument. "Joanna?" 

"You don't have a preference? _Sam_ ," she added. 

He frowned. "I think that's going to take some getting used to." It had seemed like a good idea to choose something similar to their old names to go on the new passports tucked into the glove compartment, and "Sam" would always get his attention if someone yelled it across the room, but it sounded strange coming out of her mouth. 

"We can practice in the car," she said, only half paying attention while she flipped through their second-hand road atlas. "If I need to introduce you to someone else I'll just call you my husband. Maybe we should just flip a coin? Heads for north, tails for south. It's superstitious bullshit but I kind of don't want to pick." 

He dug in his pocket for a quarter and handed it to her. The sun caught on her wedding ring as she flipped it into the air, and he watched her hand instead of the coin spinning. He didn't really care where they were running to: they were going to get there together.

**Author's Note:**

> And then they ran away to backwoods Canada and became the weird survivalist couple on the outskirts of some very small town that nobody is really friends with because they only seem to like talking to each other and also it's kind of creepy how much meat and canned food they have in their cold shed but at the same time you'd go to them for help in a minute if you needed to find a lost kid or perform an amputation that won't end up killing the patient a week later when infection sets in. Everybody thinks they're probably members of a doomsday cult, but like, reliable ones. 
> 
> Dear tabacoychanel, you so much for prompting "let's get fake married and go on the run" for these two very obsessed with each other twins! I hope I did justice to your idea -- it is true narrative gold. Happy Yuletide!


End file.
